Politics

  BERLIN / AP A German parliamentary assembly will elect the country’s new president on Sunday, with a respected former foreign minister who last year called Donald Trump one of the world’s “hate preachers” the overwhelming favorite to win. The German president has little executive power, but is considered an important moral authority. The new head of state will succeed ...

  SURIGAO / AP A powerful nighttime earthquake in the southern Philippines killed at least six people and injured more than 120, with officials combing through cracked buildings and nearby towns on Saturday to check on the damage and other possible casualties. The magnitude 6.7 quake roused residents from their sleep late Friday in Surigao del Norte province, forcing hundreds ...

  JAKARTA / AP Up to 40,000 people were caught in severe flooding following days of torrential rain in central Indonesia, where the death toll from landslides on Bali resort island rose to 13, officials said on Saturday. Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency said that incessant rains in the past five days caused rivers on Sumbawa Island to break their banks ...

  WASHINGTON / AP President Donald Trump’s extended criticism of the judiciary prompted a rebuke from his nominee for the Supreme Court, who told a senator the president’s comments were “demoralizing and disheartening.” Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to the nation’s high court last week, made the comments Wednesday after Trump accused an appellate court considering his ...

  MOSCOW / AP A member of a Russian hacking group involved in blackmailing top officials says that it had contacts with Russia’s top domestic security agency. Alexander Glazastikov said in an interview with independent Dozhd television aired on Thursday that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, had offered the Shaltai Boltai (Humpty Dumpty) group to work under its control. ...

  COPENHAGEN / AP Denmark’s cybersecurity agency sees Russia as “a leader” when it comes to hacking, saying that the country has for “a long time invested intensively in its cyber capabilities.” The Danish position is similar to that reached by others in the Nordic region where national security agencies recently have pointed fingers at Russia for illicit online activities. ...

  KABUL / AP An Afghan official says NATO drone strikes killed 11 IS militants, including two senior commanders, in the eastern Nangarhar province. Mohammad Hussain Mashraqiwal, a spokesman for the provincial police chief, identified the two commanders killed in Wednesday’s strikes as Mohammed Omar Sadiq and Omar Farooq, adding that another six people were wounded. US Navy Cpt. Bill ...

  YANGON / AP A Malaysian ship carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar’s persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon on Thursday as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. The “Food Flotilla for Myanmar” arrived following a sweeping counterinsurgency campaign in Rakhine state, where ...

  BEIJING / AP China praised US President Donald Trump on Thursday for expressing a desire for a “constructive relationship” in a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, even though the leaders have not spoken directly since Trump’s inauguration. Trump sent belated well-wishes for the Lunar New Year in a letter from the White House on Wednesday. He had been ...

  WASHINGTON / AP Two US government-funded news outlets are launching a global Russian-language TV network aimed at providing an alternative to slick, Kremlin-controlled media that critics say spread propaganda and misinformation. Current Time, run by Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty with help from Washington-based Voice of America, is targeting Russian speakers across the globe with round-the-clock programming intended to ...